Talk:Albanian exonyms

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Someone with more knowledge of Albanian than me should check this list and take out cities like "Berlini" - if the "i" at the end ist just some grammatical case ending and not really part of the exonym. Travelbird 02:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Hard one to analyse when you don't speak Albanian. I believe that "i" is common in Albanian and I know that it certainly isn't just the definite article. The final letter of Tiranë as opposed to Tirana is what the definite article is in that case: I know that the way that Belgrade is written (Beogradi), and the Montenegrin town of Bar (Bari) - which could easily be confused with the Italian city across the Adriatic - is how it appears in its nominative (subjective) form. If you are only familiar with modern western European languages, you may be forgiven for not knowing these terms. The various cases as well as the definite article being attached to the end of the word (often replacing other basic letters as in Tirana) often confuse people when they see a single word written in several different ways (eg. in English, walk, walks, walking, walked), only more along the lines of (me, I, myself all meaning the first person). Of course, I may be wrong in Albanian having maintained its cases, it may well have lost them, especially as it forms a part of the Balkan Linguistic Union, all of whose languages are in the process of losing their cases (Macedonian's have gone already). If Beogradi is how Belgrade is listed, it would only follow suit that Berlini is the Albanian name for the German capital; where there is doubt Travelbird, try to locate the nominative/subjective variation which must always form the basis for an exonym/endonym. Evlekis 06:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)